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Bryce Canyon
Entry 8 of 16 | show all | print this entry |
Up early and leaving for Bryce Canyon National Park. There's a short way and then there's Joan's way, which is the way we took! I had my heart set on seeing Kolob Canyons, which is on the northwestern side of Zion Park. We drove to Kolob Canyons and again marveled at the diversity of the landscape. This is a park with a few walking trails for the hardy and a nice scenic drive for the less-than-hardy...again, you know which way we took! LOL
Again I snapped a zillion pictures trying to capture the flavor and color of the rocks. No pictures will ever do this justice. Again, it is a must see to believe.
From Kolob Canyon, we drove to Cedar Breaks National Monument. I didn't exactly remember what we would see there. I was blown away. We were almost 10,000 feet and this is a miniature Bryce Canyon. It's about three miles across, but absolutely stunning. The rocks were bright red and the hoo-doos smaller than Bryce, but when you walk up to the rim, you are blown away (yes, I know Jennifer Granholm coined that phrase first, but unlike her, Cedar Breaks delivered! LOL)
We left the main visitor's center and drove around the rim. We stopped at one point and looked out over the canyon. I was talking to my dad in my mind and telling him how I wished he could have seen this place. I mentioned to Joe how much he would have loved this view. We walked back up the path, got in the car and I started to replace my memory card in the camera. I looked out to my right and saw the shadow of a bird...A BIG BIRD! I started my frantic Joe, Joe, Joe thing I do when I want him to look at something. We both saw it (yes, I have a witness). It was an eagle and it flew no more than 10 feet over the top of our car and swooped down towards the canyon ahead of us. I shoved in a new memory card, hustled to the edge of the cliff, only to see him again so far away I couldn't get a good picture. It was amazing and I know my dad was with me in spirit.
We then drove up another hundred feet (four cylinder cars from CA have a hard time on these roads) and saw Brian Head, a ski resort in Utah. Yes, there was still snow on the mountains! We stopped at a couple of places in the higher elevations and snapped pictures of us in shorts, 70 degree weather, standing on a snow pile.
Lunch at Panguitch and a very breath-taking drive through the Red Canyons brought us closer to Bryce. When we arrived at Bryce, we were trying to beat the clock and see the sunset over the hoo-doos. We checked into our cabin and started our scenic tour right away.
Bryce N.P. has quite a few view points. We started out with the one closest to our cabin...Sunset Point. It's an easy half-mile walk to the other closest point, Sunrise Point. We got to the rim and....I was disappointed. Okay, I know, that doesn't fit, but I must say I was. It wasn't anything like I've seen in the pictures and at this point I thought Cedar Breaks was far prettier.
The hotel clerk had told us about two other points for even better viewing at sunset and sunrise, Inspiration Point and Bryce Point. We drove to Inspiration Point and climbed what felt like a mountain to the top of the viewing platform. I made it to the top! The view was better, but still not what I thought it would be. Am I hard to please or what? We had decided to stay for the sunset from this point, but I ran out of batteries for the camera and you-know-who didn't bring the camera case with her with fresh batteries in it. All the way down Inspiration Point we trudge to the car to get more batteries.
We are minutes away from sunset and drive to Bryce Point. There was no way I was climbing back up to Inspiration Point and living to type this. We reached Bryce Point right before sunset and, there, finally, was the tear-making, take-your-breath-away sight I had been hoping for. Bryce Point is the spot where most of the fabulous pictures are taken. This is what I came to see. Sunset was glorious on the rocks, but I knew sunrise would be even prettier.
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